


Miracle

by mdpenguino



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: DarkSparks, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sensory Deprivation, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26097421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mdpenguino/pseuds/mdpenguino
Summary: Wraith desires to find out her history and find out who she truly is. A couple of friends come along for the journey.
Relationships: Wattson | Natalie Paquette/Wraith | Renee Blasey
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	1. Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is a weird one. When I was doing prompts for 31 Days I started wanting to weave prompts together, making a storyline that worked and stuck together. So this one shares the name as the final prompt! It's going to be a little different however. I hope you all enjoy reading it!

Solace City, not an imaginative name for the capital city of Solace, but then again, it’s not an imaginative place. The city was founded during the outbreak of war in the Frontier. Sure, there was a sizable settlement here before, but once the fateful three words: Interstellar Mining Corporation, started to tumble from the loose lips of the settlers, well, let’s just say that the rest is history. Even during the occupation of the planet by the IMC, the city was rife with rumours of a lawless, criminal underground. Once it was apparent to the IMC, arguably after their numerous losses on Typhon, they started to pull out of many of the planets in the Outlands. Solace happened to be one of these planets, and with the taps left running, the somewhat small criminal underbelly grew, exponentially. Research and development of weapons, and Titan based weapons, was drying up, leaving many of the production facilities were mothballed post-haste. Sure, the Militia had largely won the war, but they still had to recoup their own losses. And for them to pick up the slack and implement a proper government on all the planets that the IMC had left was one extremely tall order. So that’s how it went down, with the corruption on Solace unchecked and unnoticed, it started to seep upwards into the fragile ‘governmental system’, if you even call it that, it was largely the richest people who were able to buy out old industry and then turn their economy into political gain. And if you weren’t rich up at the top, it was because you were able to grift your way to the top. 

Taking it back slightly, during the Frontier War and the aforementioned occupation of Solace, it was true that a certain line, and figures could be easily twisted and manipulated, making the economy seem as if it was booming, that trade was good and spirits high. But with most things on Solace, it requires closer inspection. And once it’s given an ounce of scrutiny, it becomes clear that trade was only booming because Solace was being exploited. For its resources, yes, but also for the captive workforce, many of these old IMC facilities are still visible today, leaving their scars in many ways. The resources on the other hand, a different story. They were being shipped off planet in droves, often to other shell companies underneath the proud banner of the IMC. Companies such as Hammond Robotics, Vinson Dynamics; but the one that was seldom ushered, apart from the backrooms of shady office complexes: ARES. Known internally as the IMC’S Archaeological Research Division. A secretive component of the IMC and unbeknownst to the majority of the population on Solace, they had quite a large, foreboding research presence. But in the years after the war, ARES undoubtedly became quite the household name, given the right circles - not famous, perhaps infamous due to their impression on the Frontier was with their failed weapon on Typhon.

“I had that dream again.” Each word spoken by Wraith seemed to have been strung together, a tight, twisting web of words, each with their own deafening emphasis; but behind face value, there was clarity, even with just five words, she knew what she was going to say and she had definitely been waiting a while for an adequate break in the conversation. It was late afternoon. The sun had only just set, and Wraith had found herself inside the home, well apartment, of the Static Defender: Wattson. And a few choice words to Wattson had managed to subtly break an awkward silence the two legends found themselves in, due to the derailing of their previous conversation topic. The atmosphere in the room however was still tangibly teetering on awkward, any wrong conversational turn could result in disaster. But yet, the two Legends found themselves sitting after their meal. Gripped gently in Wraith’s right hand was an Appletini, Wattson had only recently found out that she was a fan of cocktails and earnestly been trying to find her favourite ones. 

Wattson spoke slowly pacing herself vocabulary, a sincere curiosity managing to lace her words. “This isn’t the first time you’ve brought this dream up, non?” Perhaps respect also slipped in, tinging each of the softly spoken syllables too. “You’ve said before, you don’t remember this place. Perhaps it’s from before who you are now. Before you were a Legend?” In between a mix of hesitant breaths and shallow sighs, she stretched a hand out across the table towards Wraith. “You know… the IMC.” Their eyes locked over these four words, Wattson tone becoming increasingly hushed. The look in Wraith’s eyes, it wasn’t a petrifying glare by any stretch, but almost atmospherically, there was still a barrier between the two of them - perhaps neither of them had left the state of awkwardness after that last conversation. “Every other time you’ve mentioned it in passing before a game, or when the ring closes around Labs. I want to hear more, I want to be able to help you.” She spoke in muted tones. “If that’s okay with you, that is.” The last handful of words were hastily bolted onto the end of the sentence, in a tentative, caring fashion.

“It was-” She started into a stutter and then began again. “There was this place. I can’t put a name to it. But that me, the me that was there, they seemed to know exactly where I was. It felt like I was retracing steps, steps that I had walked many times...in the past.” Wraith continued. She seemed dismissive of what Wattson had said only moments ago, opening up slightly, but not as much as Wattson would perhaps like. And, at the end of sentence, were large punctuated pauses, sometimes these were to take sips from her quickly draining glass, other times her voice simply just trailed off. “Nostalgic perhaps.” Impatiently, the finger nail of her index finger rapped against the glass causing the remnants of the cloudy green liquid inside to shake ever so slightly, gently sloshing up the sides.

The duo fell back into silence, backed up by the slight hum and whirring of the air conditioning unit. Wraith was staring into the distance, out through the small glass window of the room, out across Solace, looking at the evening glow. The sun hadn’t set yet and so the backdrop of Solace City was currently this caramel orange sky, with small tufts of pink cloud. Wattson noted that Wraith’s eyes were still, perhaps they were fixated on one spot in the distance, but her eyes had also adopted a ghostly glow to them. The luminesce in Wraith’s eyes wasn’t uncommon, in fact Wattson had seen it happen multiple times in the past, albeit the majority of those times would have been during the Games.

“I woke up crying.” All of Wraith’s body-language was showing with utmost clarity that she was desperately and deliberately trying to compose herself. Her gaze returned to the blonde; forehead creased, and her eyes indicative that she was looking to plead. “Is it usual? Is it normal?” Wraith stammered out. Her gaze readily tracked its way back to the blue-eyed blonde sitting across from her. Wraith drank the rest of her drink with relative ease, firmly resting the glass back down on the table. Using both of her hands she grabbed the one hand that Wattson had stretched out earlier. “Natalie.” Tears sprouted from her eyes. “Please Natalie. Tell me.” She tugged ever so slightly on her hand, visibly alarming Wattson and causing a slight of discomfort. “Please.” She sobbed quietly.

Wattson was taken-aback, even awestruck, sure Wraith had acted like this in the past - but never to this extreme, Wraith was usually the calm one, the one that would often try and help her friends, but here she is, emotionally exposed. And, for once, since meeting Wraith, Wattson felt genuinely uncomfortable with being in that ice cold gaze. It was less that she felt threatened or scared - she just felt uneasy, wary, but she also didn’t want to break eye-contact and risk hurting her more. What to do?

In an instant, Wattson’s hand jolted back down, away from Wraith’s slamming onto the table. “R-Renee?” The words sputtered out of her mouth almost instinctively, but more so reflexively. She didn’t know what to say, she felt like she was drowning in an ocean of words, but unable to say any of them. Their eyes met once again. There was a divide between them, every second that was spent with their eyes locked, they only grew further apart. 

It happened to be Wraith who broke eye contact first. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’ve said any of this.” The words were little more than apologetic mumbles, barely audible over the high-pitched whine of the air conditioning unit, Natalie had meant to get someone over to fix that noise a while ago but had never gotten around to it. Bluntly speaking, if you weren’t expecting Wraith to say something, you most likely would’ve missed it. She withdrew her hand, quickly reeling them back towards her, placing them uncomfortably in her lap. She looked down at her lap, staring at their flat, open palms, with long lines of creases traversing, trawling, tracing across her skin. They were as alien to her as ever, with the index finger of her right hand she drew it across the lines on her right hand. “I’m so sorry.” She looked back up at Wattson, with her eyes still red and puffy. Wattson however was shocked to her core, still unable to process all of this.

Wattson inhaled a single, solitary and deep, heavy breath before pushing herself against the table, with her stomach, the base of her ribs uncomfortably compressing up against it. Once again, she was stretching out her sleeved arms out across the table, a pair of pale white hands poking out of the wooly sleeves. “Renee, please-” 

“No, you only call me Renee, because of that… that stupid audio log I showed you. From the ARES lab.” A deep breath to compose herself. “Singh Labs.” a shiver shot through her body. “Back in Kings Canyon, right?” She had snapped. Through her sniffles, she was able to hold back another choking cry. “Answer me this one Nat. How do you even know that’s me.” She stated with a shout. “Sure you’re Natalie. Natalie Paquette, daughter of Luc Paquette. You helped design the ring with your father.” Another sharp intake of breath. “I don’t know who I am.” Wattson watched on in tepid dejection as Wraith’s body visibly recoiled back away from Natalie’s, her hands almost smacking back at Wattson’s outstretched hands. 

And just like a short circuit, the once stoic static defender started tearing up as well. “Please.” Her voice started to waver. “I-. We can find out for you. I can help you Wraith, please just let me.” Each word deliberately tumbling without grace from Wattson’s mouth. The sound of silence was once again collapsing on the room, apart from Natalie’s soft sobbing. A knife would easily be able to cut through the awkward tension that was making the atmosphere in the room so chokingly thick. 

“I can’t take this. I’m sorry” Wraith broke the tension in the room, and with a shake of her head, the flat of her palms were placed against the edge of the table and she pushed herself away. “I think I need to go. I need time.” She uttered briefly, her chair squeaking harshly against the shiny linoleum floor, leaving her just enough room so that she could stand, turn and leave. 

“Wraith.” Wattson started again. “All of us, all of the Legends: Mirage, Lifeline, Gibraltar. We, all.” She took a deep breath, a shiver zipped all the way up her body along her spine, and with an uncomfortable shake of her head, she was able to recompose herself.. “We all want to help yo-”

“You get that this only makes it harder for me?” Wraith spoke, cutting Natalie off, each word hissing with icy disdain. “You don’t know me.” She held back a choking cry. She tightly gripped the door handle and it with a pull, it opened. “I don’t even know me.” She muttered to herself as she stepped over the threshold. 

With her arms crossed, one lying on the other, on the table, Wattson planted her head back down onto them and sobbed. Not even the slam of the door, or the dull mechanical click of the lock clamping back into place could interrupt her sad stupor. After a while she muttered: “I just want to help you.” Her tears were pouring out of her eyes now, staining the blue wool of her jumper. “Does it matter at all?” Words flowing almost as freely as her tears were. “Do I matter at all? I want to change and help her. But I don’t know how.”


	2. Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry that this one took so long to release, it escaped the scope of what I originally planned it to be! But here it is!

The weather in Solace City hasn’t been kind, not since Wraith had given her visit to Wattson; storm after storm has been ravaging and rocking the planet. This left a certain Void Skirmisher extremely anxious. For a couple of weeks now, before her chat with Wattson, she had been planning an excursion back into Kings Canyon during the seasonal hiatus, to try and get back into Singh Labs. Every morning, Wraith would wake up and check her PDA, a message sent to Elliot: “Any luck today?” or words to that effect. Without a doubt, the reply that she got was “Not today.” You see, it’s the seasonal hiatus that means the Syndicate is busy making adjustments to the arena, meaning that she would have to sneak her way in. 

It was about 10:00AM. Wraith’s usual day-to-day routine hadn’t changed much during this hiatus. Perhaps to her, the biggest change was that she had more free-time. What to do with that free time was the question, she had to wait for an opportunity, but that free time was quickly turning into wasted time. The more time that she spent alone, the more inward she looked. As it so happened, she was currently tipping back the final dregs of a mug of coffee. And after that final slurp, it impacted down onto the table with a light slam. “I let it get cold again.” She spoke clearly, words floating like a breeze.Her eyes drifted down, gazing through the aperture of the mug. A small puddle remained at the bottom. Using her sleeved right arm, she wiped her lips clean of residue from the caffeinated beverage. Any other day, she’d usually trot her empty mug and empty bowl over to the sink and let them soak. However, following her meeting with Wattson, she’d been trying something new, something different. Something that had started to become a habit. Sure, what she was about to do scared her, infact, it scared her immensely. But, she had been getting used to it. What followed was a deep exhale, and the skirmisher throwing her head back, with a sigh, her eyes close to black.

As soon as she had closed her eyes, they started. The voices started to shout, started to chant and then, well, they started to scream. Her body language turned aggressive, movements that once started as shivers became full on shakes. To anyone else but herself, it would seem that Wraith had been possessed. Then, out of the blue she spoke in whispers, they trailed slowly out of her now open mouth. “Deep breaths.” It was clear that she was trying her hardest to block the voices out, attempting to garner a small slither of clarity, no matter how bleak. “Come on Wraith. You can do this.” She stirred herself on, however, it was clear that her voice was now strained. Mere moments later, her. breath hitched. In her eyes, tears were welling up in the corners and then trailing along the seal, clamped between her eyelids. The air suddenly ceased to pass through her body, and then her movements stilled. Seconds passed by, five, ten.

_”She wants to help.”_

_”You don’t need them, this is your past, you can find yourself.”_

_”You need her.”_

Inside her head, her voices rattled away, projecting two sides of the same coin. Two parts of Wraith, making one. 

_”You can’t decide. Can you.”_ The voices spoke in unison, their voices creating a harmony that was harsh in equal parts comforting. Whether unconscious or not, deep down in Wraith was something growing: something dark, anger, sadness and fear; perhaps not an innate fear but something more disconcerting, disconnecting, disparaging - the fear of isolation and the knowledge that she’s truly alone. Despite the intimate comfort that the voices are able to give , they leave her feeling vulnerable, defenseless - they are unable to truly provide something whole, something valuable for Wraith. If you narrow it down, they’re not a companion. They’re Wraith.

Seconds continued to tick on by, fifteen. Her body quivered, with each ticking second, they grew increasingly violently. 

_”You understand now?”_

Twenty.

_”You need us-”_

‘Pa-ping!’ the tone of the PDA sliced through the stale air of the silent room, like a searing hot knife through butter. Wraith shuddered forwards, air bellowing into her lungs. Eyes wide open, tears streaming onto her cheeks. Her breaths heavy and heady. ‘Pa-ping’ the PDA rang out again through the room, softer now. Her breaths slowed gradually, returning to normal. In her right hand, she reached out to the table, her PDA sitting neatly next to her empty coffee cup. On the screen, it was Elliot’s face, along with the words: ‘We’re good to go. Meet me at the attached coordinates, in two hours. DON’T be late, or do, that bit is up to you.’ Her heart raced. She felt alive.` It was happening, she’d have the chance to explore Singh Labs once again, the research facility buried under dirt in Kings Canyon.

In a fluid motion, she pushed her chair out from under her, and away from the table before standing up, leaving then to get changed into suitable clothes in her bedroom. 

Despite it being mid-morning, the curtains in her room were shut, their corrugated pattern was able to cover the small window, but they fanned out at the bottom, creating dim pools of yellow sunlight. Walking over, she nearly tripped on loose wires and items of clothing from days prior, she sighed, her hand heaving one of the curtains to the side. She trapsed back carefully, over items and towards the bathroom that was en-suited to her bedroom. 

“You’re a mess Wraith.” She muttered as she looked at herself in the mirror, eyes red and slightly puffy. “Maybe a shower before I go.”

As she turned her back to get undressed, a simple force of habit, she didn’t like looking at herself for too long, a gentle shiver delicately crept up her spine. She shook her head, forcing the feeling out of her body, before stepping into the shower.

* * *

“Where is he?” Wraith mumbled impatiently as she kicked her heel into the sandy roads that made up The Strip in Solace City. Following her mumbles, she coughed as the dusty cloud wafted along. “Ugh.” Despite Wraith showering, her hair was now laced with speckles of sand. Sure Wraith was late to the meet because of the shower, but not so much that Mirage would’ve ditched. Or would he? The meeting location in question was a ramshackled shop. 

For Wraith, from what she could tell, the shop seemed to be selling scavenged merchandise. The shop itself was more just a booth. The walls of this store were adorned with what looked like scrap from IMC installations and ships, front and centre, the IMC logo was being displayed, on a sharp-edged chunk of metal. No matter how uncomfortable the signage made Wraith, she slunked around the corner, deciding to stick to her guns, and sat down. And waited. 

Walking along The Strip were people. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but she was hyperaware, whether it was looking out for Mirage, or what the voices had said to her earlier. Whatever it was, she was curious. Lovestruck couples strolled past, hands-in-hands. Whilst a father was carrying a child around on their shoulders. Robots in various states of disrepair walk past, some even making eye-contact with the void skirmisher. 

What really grabbed her attention though was that a mother was calling out for a wayward child: “Amber!” She called out into the crowd: “Amber?!” Wraith’s eyes panickedly watched as the slender figure of the woman dove between the crowd, constantly weaving, or was the crowd moving against her? Consistently obscuring the mother from Wraith’s vision. In another life, perhaps Wraith would’ve gone and helped the woman, but today, she was purely the subject of Wraith’s thoughts now. Where had the child gone, had she been kidnapped, or simply strayed too far from their parent? “Amber!” Their trembling voice calling out once more through the crowd, but this time, it was quieter, meaning that Wraith had to focus to try and find her voice against the crowd. 

“Wraith? Is that you.” Mirage. His diction audibly dripped with this cocky demeanour “I almost didn’t see you there, on the floor, yanno.” 

Wraith had to look up, his head was thankfully obscuring the sun, meaning that his wispy hair created this illusion of a halo. “You’re late.” She uttered dismissively, reaching a hand out so that he could pull her up.

“Ah-ah, not just late, fashionably late.” He corrected her, with that same cocky tone. His hand latched onto her and he bore the weight pulling her up off the dusty ground. “I had some business to attend to for today.” He sheepishly moved his hand to the back of his neck.

Wraith had forgotten about the slender woman and her missing child Amber, now she had to get herself in the mindset to sneak into Kings Canyon. “So…” Wraith started. “Where’s this ship you’re on about.” 

“You mean the Mirage Voyage?” Plucked his indignant voice.

“No. No I don’t mean the Voyage. How would we sneak into Kings Canyon with your cruise liner?”   
“Haha,” Mirage’s faux laugh didn’t really convince Wraith, at all. “I was just joking with you.” He mutters. “It’s a friend-of-a-friend’s ship. We go way back.” He started walking away from the ramshackled shop and towards the sea of people. Wraith squirmed and squeezed through people to catch up to him, when she does, she’s greeted with Mirage mid sentence, obviously he didn’t realise that Wraith hadn’t been following closely.. “-itself, she’s not much, small IMC craft that was dumped here after the war.” Wraith managed to walk parallel with him, she noticed that the way that Mirage’s was speaking gave the impression that he is somewhat absentminded, his words slowly drifting off. they were now heading away from the strip, the wide streets and the crowds and their conversation started to dwindle, even if their pace didn’t.

“How much security do you think there’ll be? I’m not looking to draw attention to us if we don’t need to.” She asks after a while, as they head down a dimly lit side street. Wraith uttered a sigh of relief as she made it out of the bright sunlight, she wiped her furrowed brow, ladened with sweat for the umpteenth time that day.

It took the man some time to respond, he spun his head as if he was gathering his bearings, afterwards, he picked up the pace, walking onwards once again. “Oh, not too sure. I think because the risk of storms is still high, they’ll be running a lower security detail.” He stopped outside a large, somewhat ornate, arched door, with a smaller door for personnel entry. Above the door was quite an old fashioned window, it was tilted open ever so slightly, perhaps the owner of the warehouse wasn’t worried about theft of whatever was inside it. It was a typical warehouse entrance, they weren’t that uncommon, but perhaps the peculiar part was that this warehouse was close to the strip, it had only been fifteen or so minutes since Mirage had met up with Wraith. 

Wraith rested her back against the large metal door, as Mirage leant up close to the access terminal, and haphazardly tapped on the small, tactile number pad. “You good there?” She teased after hearing an audible ‘Access Denied’ tone.

“Yeah, yeah. I know the code. Just gotta...remember it.” He said between breaths. 

A loud squeak sounded out. The two of them looked upwards, toward where the sound was coming from. It was the small window, it had opened, and out of the window spoke a sweet French voice: “Mirage? Is that you?” A loud noise then seeped out of the window. “Merde, I’m not tall enough to see out.” 

Wraith’s face turned to this pale white, a ghostly chalky glow took over her skin. It was true that she had prepared for a lot of things, storms, getting stranded, flyers and prowlers. But she had not expected for Wattson to be in there. “Yeah Nat, I’ve forgotten the passcode to get in.” He shouted, his neck was almost craning at a ninety degree angle.. “Could you let us in.” Mirage glanced at Wraith. “Hey, you okay?” His right arm reaches out, placed onto her left shoulder. “Did I forget to mention that Wattson was going to be here?” She returns a weak smile. 

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.” She shook her head and gazed down at her boots. “Just thought I left my door unlocked. But I’m sure it’s fine.” She brought her head back up, choosing to gaze instead at Mirage. Sure, It wasn’t that she was unhappy with seeing Wattson, but internally, Wraith wasn’t prepared to try and open up to anyone about who she was, who she is, and Wattson coming along definitely hindered that plan. 

To any casual onlookers, it would’ve been clear that Mirage understood and recognized that Wraith had become somewhat uncomfortable. Like a switch had been flicked, his demeanour shifted. He went from the goof that he was, in the meantime, he managed to lose his composure. “If you don’t want her here, she doesn’t need to be.” A quick scuff of his shoe against the dusty floor before following up with: “It’s just that she’s an expert with electricity. And in the unlikely situation that they test the ring, she knows and understands it’s mechanics, intricacies and idiosyn- idiosync. It’s quirks.” Whilst he couldn’t escape some parts of his personality, he was trying his hardest to be genuine. It was then when a shallow, short buzzing noise emanating from inside the warehouse, and the door violently flung open.

“Bonjour Mirage and Wraith.” Her elegant words graced the duo with the regular clarity that her words convey, her facade only slightly breaking with a slight giggle. Wraith was weirdly shocked, the Wattson that she had shared dinner with days beforehand was gone, it seemed that this was a different Wattson. 

“Hey.” Wraith’s introduction was short, perhaps even cold. 

“Glad you could make it Nat.” Mirage beamed his usual greeting smile towards the blonde haired legend.

“Wait, she knew the passcode and you didn’t? What’s up with tha-”

“Ah. I did know the passcode, but I just.” He shuffled his foot back and forwards against the sandy floor. “It slipped my mind.” Shame was fast overtaking his usual cheeky, stoic persona.

“Oui! But it doesn’t matter now we’re all here. Right?” Wattson glanced quickly at Wraith, her tone had been laced with the insinuation that the topic should be dropped, a small hint of passive aggression perhaps. Wraith couldn’t be sure, because before she knew it, Wattson had lightly stepped backwards and managed to step out of the way of the door. She followed this action up with a petite wave, welcoming the two inside the warehouse. 

The inside of the warehouse was spacious, well, sure this was the supposed warehouse district, but it was clear that the building had been retrofitted to make it more like a hangar than anything else. And there, front and centre was the ship. It was a small craft perhaps smaller than the dropships that get used for the logistics of the Legends. To Wraith, it's age also stood out, it seemed to be older than the craft that the Syndicate used for the games. Apart from the ship, a control panel and a table with a handful of chairs the warehouse was largely devoid of anything else. She hooked the inside of her foot around the leg of a chair and pulled it out, catching it effortlessly with her hand as it threatened to topple. She sat facing the ship and with her arms resting on the back - to many she would have been considered to have been in the chair backwards. "Where did you get this ship again Elliott?" 

"Didn't I already say this?" As soon as Mirage entered the warehouse, he had moseyed over toward the control panel. "Friend-of-a-friend's" He neglected to turn his head to face Wraith, instead he simply just raised his voice, to the untrained, it sounded like Mirage was speaking normally, but whether fortunate or not, Wraith had spent a large amount of time with him (usually they’d end up on a squad together) and she could tell there was a subtle amount of annoyance lying just behind the enunciation of his words.

“Mirage…” Wattson had managed to walk up to Mirage, without him noticing. “I wouldn’t touch any of that if I were you. You don’t know what it does.” She teased with a joking punch to his right shoulder, jolting him forwards, before she reached over and started to adjust the dials and the controls. “These are only for the hangar doors too.” 

“I was just looking, y’know.” He muttered sheepishly, trying his hardest to pass it off in a dismissive and joking way.

Wraith rolled her eyes with a belated sigh. “Why did I even trust these two.” She muttered under her breath. She idly tapped her fingers on the chair trying her hardest to pass the time, watching the two other Legends mess around. Her thoughts seemed to phase back to earlier on. Earlier on when she heard the voices, namely, the: ‘You need her.; . Unbeknownst to Wraith she was watching intently at the two legends. “Why do I need them? Why do I need her.” She whispered out. In her head, she thought back to the Mother and the Daughter in the street. The mother was searching for her daughter because they both needed each-other: “Is that what the voices were on about with Wattson.” It looked as if Wattson was just telling Mirage off with the control panel. “How do I even know it’s about her?” She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Focus.”

“We seem to be all ready over here.” Wattson called out, tearing Wraith away from her thoughts. Some time had passed, but it seemed that none of the present Legends were actually aware of how long. “Wraith you ready to go?” Wattson called out from across the room at the control panel. Her back now leaning against one of the many sturdy concrete pillars that held up the roof of the warehouse. 

“I’ve been ready for a while.” 

“Off we go then!” Mirage shouted, pulling a lever causing the hangar doors in the roof to peel apart from each other and open with a loud cacophony. 

“Yippee!” Wattson commented, happily skipping towards the ship.

“Please, both of you, don’t be so happy about all this.” Wraith sighed.


	3. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all! Sorry that this one took so long to release, it escaped the scope of what I originally planned it to be, and then life hit like a truck. But here it is!

Wattson had the back-end of the craft all to herself, well all to herself and a small Nessie keyring that she was currently twirling around her finger. It wasn’t cosy nor was it cramped. It all reeked of the Frontier War. Harsh metal walls seemed to pine upward toward the flat gunmetal of the ceiling. Whilst she wasn't necessarily scared of heights, the idea of Elliott piloting their ship did sew the seeds of fear within her head, especially with the rough engine noises that were coming from the craft right now. “Nessie.” Speaking softly, like the spun silk that her papa used to bring home from the markets on Solace. Gradually she slowed the twirling down until she halted it, catching the small nessie in her fingers, lifting it up slightly and gently pinching the green felted plush in between her first finger and thumb. “Do you think Wraith hates me?” Of course the plushie couldn’t talk back. She spun it back round on her finger for a while longer before stopping once again. The metal of the keyring was starting to leave a red mark on her finger. She pushed her head back against the chair, impacting with a soft thud onto the cushion.

Ignoring the rattling and the roar of the engines, there was a silence in the back cabin. “I want to help her.” She spoke softly quietly, choking back tears and memories of that night where Wraith stormed out of her apartment. Staring out one of the small slits now, barely 10cm wide. “I can help her.” Her voice was still quivering, but there was a hint of optimism. “But why is Mirage here? Is he just escorting her too and forth or does he know more?” She muttered and shook her head, leaning back into the seat once again. “I need to relax,” Her eyes closed. “If anything goes wrong she’s gonna need me to help her.” 

Before she knew it, they had made it. King’s Canyon. The flight was rough at times perhaps due to Mirage being stern with his: “steadfast and careful navigation” the truth of the matter simply lay in the fact that turbulence made him uneasy. No matter the time or place, when Mirage talked about his fears in such an aversive way, Wattson couldn’t help but giggle.

The decided landing location for the craft was Interstellar Relay, well, the remnants of the Interstellar Relay that once stood in the north-east of Kings Canyon. In one of the recent seasons the Mercenary Syndicate had devoted a lot of resources into the Apex Games, especially with the stunt that was pulled with the explosive disappearance of Skull Town. This was all made possible with the help of external funding partners, namely Hammond Robotics, a legacy left behind from the days of the IMC and the Frontier War. In Kings Canyon, things were being unearthed, old IMC technology, and it was all being facilitated by what Mirage had theorized as a loading and unloading point near to where Interstellar Relay was, infact a large amount of antiquated and obsolete telecommunications equipment that had laid dormant in Interstellar Relay had been cleared to make way for this new Rig. The trio seemed to have arrived at an opportune time, the large cranes were still operating, but activity seemed to be minor. 

“Now seems as good as ever to head out.” Wraith expressed as she pulled out a sprung handle adorned the metallic door. Something was off with her, the usual subdued optimism was gone, stripped back, her voice almost seemed hollow. With little effort the figure crouching opposite Wattson, tugged on said handle and with a ceremonious gush of wind, the door flew open, slamming against its braces. “This could take a while.” Looking over her shoulder at Wattson, sharing a fleeting moment of eye-contact with Wattson. “I’ll see you soon.” And as soon as she had finished the sentence she hopped out. Wattson was taken aback. She was gone, there was the momentary sight of her almost scarf waving as if it had been woven out of ethereal silk. Seconds later came the audible hiss of hydraulics as the door closed. 

“Was she,” The rectangular opening of light that was currently cast over the blonde was quickly decreasing as the door closed. “Was that directed at me?” She sighed, almost in time with hiss of the hydraulics as they returned to their slack position. She sat there alone in silence. Well, not complete silence. From the cockpit came Mirage, he was whistling a tune, it was patchy at best and his whistling was probably not doing it any justice. That’s what occupied the high-end of her hearing so-to-speak, the low end, was this dull, monotonous static. It too was resonating out from the cockpit. It was the radio-scanner. Mirage was listening in to the crew radios. Or trying to at least. 

Wattson was crawling and climbing into the cockpit of the craft. The cockpit was old, it was odd, the inside of the vehicle looked more aged than the outside. She sat down in a worn, red leather chair, the fluffy yellow stuffing threatening to peak out at any moment. Once she was as comfortable as she thought she could be, she rotated her head and looked toward the clumsy rogue in the piloting seat. “Do you like change?” She asked quietly as she shuffled her shoulders and writhed slightly to adjust her position in the seat. She had spent the journey sitting awkwardly in the back of the ship, whilst Wraith and Mirage helmed the front of the craft - but there was still a feeling she couldn't shake: was she wanted here?

“Huh?” The man was obviously taken aback by the quick question from the static engineer. “Uh, I mean sure I do.” He fiddled around with his hands in his lap, eyes darting around the cockpit. “I hate to see people grow apart.” A choking breath was stifling in his throat. “I hate to see people change.” His eyes came to a rest, being cast towards his hands in his lap, they had stopped speeding around in their ornate sockets.

She was immediately aware that she had struck a nerve. “Désolé,” she spoke quickly, her head bowed down slightly, almost shyly. Mirage didn’t respond, allowing the cockpit to fall into silence. Usually, she wouldn’t mind the silence, but right now, Wattson was innately aware that she was certain that she had upset Mirage. Sure, whilst it can be said that she’s not the most aware of everyone’s emotions and it can be hard to keep up with them. This face said it all. It was the same face that she knew all too well. Why? Because it was the one that she dons whenever Caustic inquires about her about her Papa. “I’m sorry for bringing it up.” 

Mirage played with the elaborate, yet worn, knobs and dials of the radio scanner, he was almost caught off guard with her follow-up comment. “N-no. It’s fine.” He let’s go, fully leaning back into his chair and leaning up and looking upward at the cold-grey of the sheet metal that lined the inside of the cockpit. “I don’t like to talk much about change. It happens and I move on. Simple.” And as fast as he changed position, he was back to a hunched over position and, twiddling with the dials, eliciting all types of static to ring through the air. 

Mirage kept tuning in and out of this broadcast, he wasn’t patient enough to wait for the announcement to ring out. But on this frequency, as far as Wattson could tell it was around 300kHz, there was a distinct male voice, reading the same thing: “...ift pat..rn A-6...4”.

It was after a few minutes of hearing this inconsistent broadcast that she finally decided to try and hear it. With her right hand, she swatted Mirage’s hands out of the way and stabilized the frequency on 300kHz. “Stop changing it so fast.” She muttered. The system was old, the knobs felt tacky perhaps sticky even. She started to turn the dials. 300kHz landed on pure static and so she rotated the dial ever so slightly bringing the frequency up: 310, 315, 325. Bingo.

“Shift pattern A-6524.” It wasn’t the clearest, still the harsh pop and crackle of the static ringing through, but it was enough. The monotone voice repeated, over and over. 

Mirage couldn’t sit still, his vision was busy searching the cabin. Natalie was aware that he was uncomfortable. “What does that mean?” He grunted out in a mumble. 

“Pardon, mon ami?” Unlike Mirage who was steadfastly in the room, Natalie was elsewhere; eyes gazing directly out of the cabin, the gears clicking away in her head.

He stopped fiddling with his hands and looking around the cab, turning toward Natalie. “I said, what does it mean?” He raised his voice slightly. 

Natalie wasn’t phased by Mirage’s rising voice, instead batting his aggression away simply: "Shush, you're just like my cat Nikola." She was leant forward, hands scrambling away under the chair trying to retrieve something. 

"Am not." Mirage retorted back with the speed at which he usually would.

Natalie looked up at him. Her face was a deep contortion of all the words she could say to him currently. "Elliott, trust me, you are." All it took was an inpatient shake of her hair for her to return to her retrieval task. "Aha! Here it is" she quickly returned to sitting upright. Held tightly in her hands was a plain brown spiral notebook. Well, as plain as scribbles and drawings of Nessie's can be.

Mirage just sat there in awe as she seemed to occupy herself completely with transcribing the radio alerts. "But I return to my original point, we don't know what any of this means." 

"Hmm?" She was in a daze. "Pardon?" It was clear that she had to pull herself out of what she was doing. 

"These codes, we don’t know what they mean. It hasn't mentioned Wraith. It could be anything. For God's sake how do we even know it's to do with shift patterns or guard movements?" His voice reeked of concern, with a furrowed brow and beady eyes glaring directly at the static defender. 

Wattson sat there silently at first; she didn't expect this confrontation from Elliott. "Well. We don't. Yes.” She punctuated herself with a sharp intake of air, her lips puckering inward slightly. “But we need to keep track just in case we find out what it is that they're on about." Facial features were stretched into the most welcoming and beaming smile that she could muster. “Plus, it might have mentioned Wraith, but we don’t know.” But Mirage wasn't having any of it. And they sat there in this awkward stare-off. Mirage blankly looking at her and Natalie trying her dearest to just get him to see her way of things. 

Nothing else was really said between the two of them. Wattson had it worked out that every five or so minutes a new order was barked out over the radio. And this five minute interval stayed consistent, allowing her to have multiple listens just to make sure she was transcribing correctly. Order after order piped their way through the radio, and diligently, Wattson wrote them down. 

Surprisingly, it was Wattson who piped up first. She gulped, trying to compose herself. “I don’t mean to sound confrontational Elliott, but why did you come here?” She quickly flicked her head up from the notebook, however, she just stared out towards the high-walls of the IMC’s Capacitor. 

“I’m here for Wraith.” The words left his lips slowly, he turned to Wattson. “Or Renee, whatever she intends on finding in those god forsaken labs.” They held their gaze, a mutual understanding, neither had to say anymore. To Wattson, it felt like Mirage had a reason to be here, he was the pilot - furthermore, he was invested in her as a friend. Herself, she couldn’t even bring herself to apologise to her about her confrontation over dinner the other evening.

However, what neither of them were paying attention to was the sky. More importantly, the clouds in the sky, they started ever so slowly to swirl and gather in tall columns of thick grey mass. The duck-egg blue skies from earlier in the day were gone, for now the clouds were painted with an apprehensive orange. On ground level, there was a thick black haze of fog gathering, roughly a foot above the red-clay ground.

Above Labs, there was this criss-cross of metal creating this superstructure. However, to all the Legends, it seemed to just be a remnant from when the IMC were in control of Solace and that was largely what it was. It had served no purpose in the Apex Games, just standing tall above its surrounding cliffs, with discordant lengths of metal piercing out of its trunk toward the top.

A humming and whistling noise overcame the cockpit of Mirage’s ship. Matching this noise, in the far distance, within the aforementioned metal superstructure above labs, small blue sparks were bouncing, falling and fading away down toward labs - these sparks currently were two small for either Wattson or Mirage to spot. “Wattson, what is that noise?” he asked, looking toward her. 

All of a sudden the whistling cut out, or it was simply overwhelmed by the humming noise. Within the metal structure at Labs, a giant beam of blue light surged it’s way up and out the top. The hum became deeper and shorter, bellowing out one final fog-horn like noise.

“Scratch what I just said.” Mirage was flustered and he dug his fingernails into the worn leather arm-rests. “What is that.”

A shockwave hit the ship, setting off all sensors, and knocking the two legends’ heads firmly against the back of their chairs, the impact of it, locking them to the leather of their chairs.

“I. I wish I knew.” Came the first breath, it was followed by a heavy, slow sigh. The fear in her voice evident from her slight stammer. 

The inside of the ship was by far warm or comfortable, what with the air that was being recycled by the air-con unit. The unit was definitely faulty, sometimes clunking and whirring away, but Natalie knew one thing was certain, being in this ship right now is a lot better than being out there. Her thoughts wondered to Renee. “Stay safe.” She mustered her strength to utter those two simple words under her breath.

The two legends sat there until the radio sputtered to life. Instead of the plain voice, it was multiple shouting all over each-other. voices mention the repulsor tower incident. After maybe thirty seconds of radio chaos, it all cut silent once again. It was the plain monotonous voice. “Warning. Unauthorised activity in Labs. Multiple teams dispatch, dispose of threats. A54, A345…” the voice rattled off more and more codes, supposedly now these codes meaning teams. But the two Legends were too preoccupied with the announcement, specifically ‘dispose of threats’. Instinctively, Wattson hunched over, leaning toward the radio system. Contra to her earlier reprimands of Mirage, she was now anxiously fiddling with the dials, trying to get more clarity. She let it ring out once more.

They didn’t need time to work out what was being said, but this repeat of it just seemed to cement what it actually meant, a look of fear seemed to glaciate over both of their faces. It was as if Wattson had seen a ghost. She was hunched over, a position she’s used to when working with prototyping electronics, but here, well she was taken aback launching herself out of her slouch, head hitting the back of the chair. She was wired, her mind sent into a spiral and now it was quickly racing itself. She opened her mouth to speak; a muted almost garbled cry seemed to escape her cracked lips. Instead, it was Elliott Witt instead who spoke out first. “Renee?” His face seemed to be somewhat numb, no longer was he showing any sort of grandiose emotion in his features. Natalie always found it hard to read Elliott and pick up on his social cues, Wraith did it well, something that Nat remains envious of, but here? He was blank, emotionless, anyone could tell - especially Nat. And the tone of his voice seemed to be twinned with his shallow emotionless face. “That must be Renee, right?” the pitch of his voice wavered upward in a crescendo. The second time now that he had been made dumbstruck in less than 30 minutes, however, probably not a new record for Mirage.

“I’m not sure.” She gripped the pen in her hand hard, the tension steeped in her voice, making it seem like her words were taut. 

Wattson didn’t respond. What would it mean for her to respond? 

She crawled out of the torn-red-leather chair and out of the cockpit. “I know you don’t want to talk about change. But hey, I don’t like change either. This was.” She shook her head. “This is my home. And I’m not gonna let Wraith do something she might regret.” 

“You’re both doing something stupid.” Mirage sighed. His head bobbed out of view whilst Wattson struggled with the door mechanism. “Hey Nat, here, take this thingamajig.” Her head snapped back around to look at Mirage. Her face was illuminated in the blue light from labs. He had thrown her a small black box, and she had just managed to catch it, it looked about as old-fashioned as the insides of the craft. “Just In case something happens with those shift patterns of yours.” Wattsons now gloved hands gripped the box tightly, it was black and with one large dial in the middle. 

She was intrigued, the motions with her hands evidently showed this, and she was still inquisitively fiddling around with the box, she lifted her head up at an acute tilt. “What is it?” She piped up.

He gave a mild chortle, perhaps restrained by the situation that Wraith may find herself in currently. “Wait, the inventor of the Ring doesn’t know what one of these is.” He mumbled indignantly for once, savouring to himself the ability to show-off to the young genius. “It’s a communicator.”

Wattson juggled the item around sporadically between her hands, toying with it and almost dropping at one point and then deciding better and putting it in her pocket. She looked up again, staring into Mirage’s eyes. “Thank you for bringing me, it means a lot to be able to see Kings Canyon again when we’re not fighting one another,” She hummed, no longer did she hold any qualms toward Mirage. She swung her legs out of the door of the ship, and just like Wraith earlier, she was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, maybe a cliffhanger of sorts after 4 months isn't the best idea, but hey, you get what you're given. I've got a rough plan for the future chapters, so hopefully they won't take as long to release as this one did. 
> 
> So long, and thanks for reading!


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